10-minute parking spaces to stay at Hampton Beach

Friday

HAMPTON — The selectmen are planning to solidify the 10-minute parking spaces on Ocean Boulevard that have existed for dozens of years but was never properly arranged in the state's books.

HAMPTON — The selectmen are planning to solidify the 10-minute parking spaces on Ocean Boulevard that have existed for dozens of years but was never properly arranged in the state's books.

There are a set of signs on the west side of Ocean Boulevard between Church Street and High Street that describe 10-minute parking zones, but no one knows how they got there, Town Manager Fred Welch said. When the town found out that the state didn't even recognize any parking there, it was faced with the choice of either nixing what's there or properly registering it.

Skip Windemiller, who owns D.W.'s Oceanside Inn, said over the years leasing parking spaces has become prohibitively expensive and in the late 1970s "the state and town led us to believe don't worry about the parking."

He said he has 80 to 100 people stop in on a Saturday in the summer to quickly pay or ask for directions before he gives them permanent parking.

"Without that parking for them, I'm out of business," he said.

Bill Lally, who owns the Lally's Lighthouse convenience store, said the 10-minute parking outside his store is necessary and "a non issue" as it currently stands. Lally was formerly a Hampton police officer and said he remembers only one time in his 28 years on the force that he got a call to go to North Beach for a complaint about a violation of the 10-minute parking.

"These small issues are killers to small businesses," he said. "I wholeheartedly vote for doing nothing."

Others who live north of Boar's Head in the more residential area said parking on the street can cause difficulty and dangerous situations for drivers pulling onto Ocean Boulevard. Bill Dufresne, a civil engineer who lives in that area, said it's "wrong to include the businesses and residential together" when adopting a new policy. He said he's used the 10-minute parking in front of his house for loading and unloading, but it becomes dangerous when people ignore the time restriction and park long-term, eliminating sight lines onto the road.

When Dufresne pulls out onto the street, he said, "I don't see them. I let them see me" by inching the nose of his vehicle into the street.

"North Beach, it's a speedway out there on a summer night," he said.

In the end, Chairman Dick Nichols moved to solidify the situation as it exists today, turn it into an ordinance for selectmen's approval, and communicate that ordinance to the state for adoption.

Chief Jamie Sullivan noted that some of the 10-minute signs that were in certain areas along the numbered streets on North Beach no longer exist, though there was no talk specifically about replacing those signs. Sullivan said "curiously" those areas with removed signs are the same places where the Police Department has received reports of people parking their cars long term.

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